Migrant-rights groups reach out to Blacks

by Krissah Thompson - Mar. 20, 2010 12:00 AMWashington Post

WASHINGTON - Organizers of a march for immigrant rights in Washington on Sunday are reaching out to African-Americans, hoping to bring the two communities together around an issue that has been a wedge between them.

The campaign includes ads for the march on urban radio stations along the East Coast that ask listeners to lend their support.

"Everyone has been hurt by the economy, especially African-Americans and immigrants. The truth is, together you can demand real change," the ads state.

The effort is part of a broader strategy among Hispanic, Black and Asian civil-rights groups to unite on areas of common interest and to get Congress and the Obama administration to enact major legislation on jobs and immigration.

The coalition-building approach is a shift for immigrant-rights groups, who held similar marches in 2006 and 2007. Then, disparate Hispanic groups spurred a large protest movement to push for citizenship for the more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., relying little on organizations outside the community.

The idea of a racial coalition aims to push an overhaul of immigration law as an "American issue, not just an immigrant issue," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

For this march, organizers are tying their pursuit of a wholesale overhaul of immigration law to the civil-rights movement of the 1960s.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and National Urban League President Marc Morial will speak at the rally.

"It is very important that the nation's communities of color do not simply see themselves as groups competing for crumbs," Morial said.